BBV - 2 new bombshell articles hit Diebold

[BevHarris]

Have been juggling a million things, and working on these stories with Ian Hoffman was one of them. Jim March did a heroic job, by the way. Okay, here goes (and the hits just keep on comin'):

Diebold was aware of shortcomings early
By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER
http://www.trivalleyherald.com/Stories/0,1413,86~10669~2095693,00.html

Attorneys for Diebold Election Systems Inc. warned in late November that its use of uncertified vote-counting software in Alameda County violated California election law and broke its $12.7 million contract with Alameda County. Soon after, a review of internal legal memos obtained by ANG Newspapers shows, Diebold's attorneys at the Los Angeles office of Jones Day realized the McKinney, Texas-based firm also faced a threat of criminal charges and exile from California elections.

Yet despite warnings from the state's chief elections officer, Diebold continued fielding poorly tested, faulty software and hardware in at least two of California's largest urban counties during the Super Tuesday primary, when e-voting temporarily broke down and voters were turned away at the polls. Other documentation obtained by ANG shows that the latest approved versions of Diebold's vote-counting software in this state cast doubt on the firm's claims elsewhere that it has fixed multiple security vulnerabilities unearthed in the last year.

(snip)

California elections officials said they are perplexed that Diebold apparently has not changed practices since a December audit revealed uncertified software running in every county that it serves.

snip

In drafts of a Feb. 13 letter to state regulators, Diebold's attorneys declared that Diebold makes no changes to electronic devices that the company and its predecessor have been programming for at least five years. The drafts show they staked out a firm position that a critical piece of Diebold's voting system -- its voter-card encoders -- did not need national or state approval because they were commercial off-the-shelf products, never modified by Diebold.

But on the same day the letter was received, Diebold-hired techs were loading non-commercial Diebold software into voter-card encoders in a West Sacramento warehouse for shipment to Alameda and San Diego counties.

snip
More than 600 of the devices froze or displayed unfamiliar screens and error messages on the morning of Election Day, for failure rates of 24 percent in Alameda County and about 40 percent in San Diego County.

snip

An outspoken tech complained about the poor quality controls and the failure of the devices when sapped of power.

"He was gone. They fired him," Dunn said. "The attitude among the others there was, 'I don't care how screwed up these things are, I'm going to keep quiet. I'm not going to get fired.'"

snip
Diebold's claims to California elections officials, through its attorneys, that it does not modify the encoder software is blatantly untrue, according to Dunn and electronic-voting opponent Jim March.

"That's a lie," March said.

Last year, Seattle-based journalist Bev Harris found nine versions of Diebold encoder software on an unsecure Internet site. Software engineers such as March have been marveling at their multitude since.

"When you vote, you are inserting a memory card containing up to 128k of God-only-knows what. With no oversight, the 'smart cards' could contain some very stupid stuff indeed, or even deliberate subversion," he said.

* * * * * See post below for the second article, Diebold lawyers preparing for criminal prosecution?

[NMDemDist2]

1. send this to NYT, CNN and everybody you can think of n/t

[BevHarris]

2. Here's the second article: Diebold preparing for criminal prosecution?

Voting services firm facing legal hurdles
By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER
http://www.trivalleyherald.com/Stories/0,1413,86~10669~2095694,00.html

In a series of internal memos, attorneys for Diebold Election Services Inc. depict California as a legal minefield where the electronic-voting giant faces a false-claims (Qui Tam) lawsuit, potential grand jury investigations, investigations by state and local elections authorities and lawsuits by counties.

Starting Wednesday, California elections regulators will debate punishing Diebold for fielding unapproved voting systems in violation of state law. They could ban the use of some or all Diebold equipment in California elections, even bar the nation's second largest voting- systems provider from doing business in the largest state.

By February, according to memos obtained by ANG Newspapers, attorneys at the Los Angeles office of corporate defense firm Jones Day estimated that defending Diebold on all quarters would cost $535,000 to $925,000 for two months.

At the time, Jones Day already was scoping potential defenses to a California False Claims Act suit against Diebold that is filed under seal and not publicly available. Lead counsel for Diebold's troubles in California has been assigned to Daniel D. McMillan, a specialist in the False Claims Act.

If the plaintiffs prove that Diebold knowingly made misrepresentations to local governments to win voting-systems contracts, such as its $12.7 million sale to Alameda County and its $31 million sale to San Diego County, Diebold could face punitive damages for up to three times the contracts' value.

Jones Day also had begun analyzing Diebold's risk of criminal prosecution, at a two-month cost of $25,000 to $40,000. The internal memos show the firm already has concluded that California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley has evidence that Diebold violated state election laws in at least Los Angeles, Lassen and Trinity counties.

Jones Day's lawyers advised Diebold to retain a white-collar criminal defense specialist for "pre-grand jury investigative advice" at an additional $5,000 to $10,000 a month, with an eye to "persuading prosecuting authorities not to bring criminal charges."

...

[Bushfire]

5. Wouldn't that be sweet!

seeing Wally O'Dell behind bars, and his right to vote taken away from him before November. We can dream can't we!?! :bounce:


"persuading prosecuting authorities not to bring criminal charges."

[Occulus]

6. Hey Bev, question

Several months ago (was it really last year?), you mentioned that you were somewhat reticent to file a Qui Tam because of... what was it, evidence restriction, or some such technical limitation on what can be done with information garnered from the lawsuit itself? I'm wondering if you changed your mind on that, or was the filing done by other parties?

The history of this story is itself another book! Keep up the good work, Bev; you're fighting the proverbial Good Fight.

[BevHarris]

9. I have not changed my mind.

My objection is to filing any legal proceeding that removes this kind of voting security information from the public domain, especially during election season.

Elections took place in January, February, March, April. Voters and those running elections have a right to know all evidence available that pertains to the security of their election system. If information exists that pertains to specific risks and problems, but the information is under seal, this could produce irreparable harm.

It would be particularly inappropriate if the person filing agrees to a gag order in order to profit personally from the action. Even if an organization chose to use the funds to create a foundation for itself, if it's done by withholding information during the middle of election season, I believe that the harm outweighs the benefit.

Bev

[Occulus]

18. So who, then, filed a Qui Tam?

Or has it not actually been done yet? I only ask because the article says Diebold is or may be facing such a suit. I immediately figured it wasn't you; thanks for refreshing my memory on why. I agree with your reasoning, by the way.

[BevHarris]

22. Diebold's attorney's memos refer to the suit

But I'm not clear on whether they refer to "the" suit or "a" suit -- one would reflect knowledge of such a suit, the other would reflect planning for the possibility.

Ian Hoffman told me the memos said "the" suit.

Which raises another question: If it is "the" -- and if it is under seal -- why the hell does Diebold know about it? Did someone leak the info to them? I'm not sure how the timelines work, but that struck me as odd.

Bev

[RedEagle]

7. Willfully Using Illegal Systems.....

....could also be said of the county registrars who are threatening to sue if their paperless wonders are taken away from them, right?

They signed purchase agreements in violation of state law.

Why isn't the state prosecuting these election officials?

Seems like the tables ought to be turning there.....


Again, don't let them argue they cannot conduct an election without paperless voting machines.

Time for voting advocates to volunteer to hand count paper ballots:

Write the registrar's of the counties involved
CC Kevin Shelley
CC News organizations
CC The California State legislature

Make it OBVIOUS that Diebold counties CAN conduct an election without criminal voting systems.

Make democracy work- it's a PEOPLE process.

This whole movement has been grass roots from the git go- now the grass roots must volunteer to conduct honest, clean, auditable elections.

Election officials would rather manage machines than people. If they don't want people in the process, get rid of them.

It's your vote, your money, and your democracy.

[SoCalDem]

10. We need legislation that overturns an election when this type

of stuff is found.. That's the only way to make it "unprofitable" to attempt.. If this type of fraud is discovered after the fact, whichever party benefitted, should have to forfeit ALL the races that they "won".. That would make them think twice :)

Ahhhhnold has not done ONE thing that Davis would not have done.. (except for the car tax thing)..

Regarding the car tax...it was NOT techically an "increase" so much as it was a "restoration" to where it USED to be..

People who can afford to pay $50K and up for a car, SHOULD be paying the high registration prices.. A really fair way to structure those taxes would be to do it based on the CAFE standards.. The big "wasters" should pay more..

Ahhhhnold only put some lipstick on Davis' ideas, and schmoozed with some star-struck idiots (mostly dems :grr:..) and he's the greatest thing since sliced bread :(..

[BevHarris]

12. Yeah. The penalties just aren't there, are they?

Question: How many chances does a company get when it ruins the credibility of one election after the next? How many times does a single company get to disenfranchise voters before someone says "enough!"

Bev

[Occulus]

19. You think, one chance, but...... *sigh* n/t

[BevHarris]

16. It's not too late to switch to optical scan systems

The article says:

Voting experts say the industry's factories and printing plants probably can handle the extra demand for replacement voting machines and paper ballots, given at least three months' notice. But Shelley's decision also could unleash a barrage of lawsuits that could mire orders of equipment and ballots in legal wrangling over who will pay for them.

Bev

[phoebe]

36. I thought that optical scan systems were just as much of a

problem as Diebold machines? Which is it?

[BevHarris]

39. Diebold makes both touch screen and optical scan

And yes, the optical scans have problems, but they can be quickly solved.

We need:

1) Voter verified paper ballot
2) Robust random spot check (4% is what statisticians report is a good number)
3) Polling place results posted publicly before votes transferred to the county, numbers compared.
4) Postal receipts identifying number of incoming mail-in and absentee ballots, compared with number received by elections division.
5) A few more reports, generally already available in the software and easily printed and compared
6) A few more security procedures, not difficult to implement.

We're talking tight timelines, so the first order of business is to get the paper ballots, while we still have time. The other items can be arranged with relatively short lead times.

Bev

[ParanoidPat]

21. Contact them (again) TODAY!

CALIFORNIA

Secretary of State - Kevin Shelly

California Secretary of State
1500 11th Street
Sacramento, California 95814

Phone: [phone]

Elections Division

Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
TDD: 1 800 833 8683 (No Charge to Calling Party)
Vote Fraud Hotline: [phone] VOTE (8683) Recorded
E-Mail: [e-mail]
Contact: http://www.ss.ca.gov/cgi-bin/print_form.cgi

Elections Division Home
County Elections Supervisors
State Election Code
Voter Registration Information
Voter Registration Form - English
Voter Registration Form - Spanish
Absentee Voting Information
Absentee Ballot Application - English
Absentee Ballot Application - Spanish
Absentee Ballot Application - Tagalog
Absentee Ballot Application - Japanese
Absentee Ballot Application - Chinese
http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/Outreach/absentee/links/VT_absentee_ge2004.pdf">Absentee Ballot Application - Vietnamese
Absentee Ballot Application - Korean
Voting Equipment Page
Election Results Page (Historical)

[wtmusic]

3. xlnt Bev

thanks! :-)

[nostamj]

4. wow

forwarded to Air America...

[cosmicdot]

8. kick

:dem:

[ParanoidPat]

11. This needs to be sent to all three major programs on Air America!

O'Franken Factor, Majority Report and Randi Rhodes, all mention these machines on a DAILY basis. Anyone frequent their blogs? :shrug: :evilgrin:

Oh yeah! Ed Schultz on the Jones Radio Network is another one who would definitely be interested in these developments! His show airs on AM 620 KPOJ right after the O'Franken Factor. You can listen 'live' at the following link. :) http://www.super62.com/listen/index.php

Give them a call! :bounce:

[hedda_foil]

13. Get it to Franken FAST. He's interviewing Rush Holt TODAY!!!!

Somebody please call his producer as well as sending the stories. I have a doctor's appointment and am already late or I'd do it myself. Does Holt have this info yet?

[redqueen]

14. Thanks for the links

Afraid to get too excited about this, but ... yay!

[papau]

15. Miami Voters unable to have printed receipt (Jeb refuses State Aprroval)

Miami Voters unable to have printed receipt (Jeb refuses State Aprroval)


http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/politics/8471447.htm

Posted on Tue, Apr. 20, 2004

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
(Miami) Voters unable to have printed receipt (Jeb refuses State Aprroval)
Miami-Dade election officials say they can't install printers on the county's 7,200 voting machines in time for this year's presidential election because they lack state approval and the technology.
BY LUISA YANEZ
[e-mail]

A proposal to add printers to Miami-Dade's touch screen voting machines by November's presidential election fizzled Monday. The culprit: The available technology is not state certified, election officials said.

"We simply cannot use the technology if it's not state certified, even if the printers were available," Supervisor of Elections Constance Kaplan told the County Commission's election subcommittee, while presenting the findings of a 309-page report.

<snip>iVotronic vendors must wait for specifications from federal and state election officials before they can proceed with a prototype."They have to set standards and tell us what they want," said Meghan McCormick, spokeswoman for Election Systems & Software, the Nebraska-based makers of the iVotronic. "They have to decide things like the size and weight of the paper used for the receipt, in what languages it will be printed, what would be on it," she said. Any such printer would first need to be certified by Florida, as required by law.<snip>


Although touch-screen machines cannot be hacked into from the outside because they are not connected to the Internet, Douglas Lewis, executive director of the nonprofit The Election Center, said a paper trail, in a way, makes the machines vulnerable."The truth remains that if you want to manipulate any election anywhere in the world, the best way to do it is still with a piece of paper," said Lewis, whose group advises elections supervisors nationwide....."For example, if you get a paper trail, then you have to decide what to do when you have to do a recount. Are you going to recount the electronic vote or the paper vote? That can take a long time. Florida never finished recounting its paper votes in 2000."<snip>

[BevHarris]

17. Okay, I still vote for Florida as the crookedest place on earth

One nonsensical argument after the next.

Bev

[Occulus]

20. Hold on a sec.

Aren't these machines already capable of printing a receipt? Don't I remember reading that the code is already there, just waiting to be actually used?

Or is my memory faulty? If I'm right, then isn't the printing technology already certified, and all they need is the physical device to make it happen?

Seems to me they wouldn't have to certify a device not actually involved in recording, storing, or counting the votes... or are they worried about the process of securing the receipts?

:eyes: Whatever....

[ParanoidPat]

23. The printer is already there.....

.....the code to make it print individual ballots does not exist nor is the existing printer set up in such a way as to display the printout to the voter for verification. (say under a glass or plastic 'anti-tamper' window.)
It wouldn't be too big of a deal to develop a 'stand alone' printer/ballot box that plugs into the parallel port on the machine. The software is another matter all together.

[BevHarris]

24. But three companies already have it, and are already certified

What they are really saying is that they purchased from the wrong companies.

Certified systems with a voter verified paper ballot:

- Avante
- AccuPoll
- TruVote

Companies that didn't get it together in time:

- Diebold
- Sequoia (coming out with something this fall in Nevada though)
- ES&S
- Hart Intercivic

Bev

[ParanoidPat]

27. Reminder, Rush Holt coming up on The O'Frankin Factor starting NOW

Yeah Bev, I was just answering his question. :)

Bev, do you have the call in number for AA? :evilgrin:
On Edit: Here it is, 866 303 2270 I'm sure they would love to talk to you! :)

http://www.airamericaradio.com/bin/blogExcerpts.cfm?blogId=1&prg=3

TUESDAY'S SHOW

We’ll talk to John Nichols, a writer for The Nation and the Capital Times of Madison. Also, Rep. Rush Holt of Ohio will join us to talk about Diebold voting machines. You may remember Diebold CEO Walden O'Dell saying he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

Also on tap: comedy, the latest right-wing lies from David Sirota (sign up for his newsletter yourself), comedy, and comedy.

Posted 04.19.2004 · Comments (278)

[nodictators]

25. And what about Orange County and their Hart InterCivic e-Slates

Another fiasco in the CA 2004 Primary Election.

The LA Times estimated that 7,000 voters in Orange County used the wrong ballots for their precincts. It seems that e-Slate voters are given an "easy-to-remember" 4-digit number to enter into the e-Slate. Problem was that they were given the wrong numbers and, in effect, voted in races in precincts other their own.

It seems that the crackerjack software in the county's master computer never noticed that these erroneous votes came from the wrong precincts, and counted all of them. Apparently, no record was kept on where the votes came from, and no corrections could made. The Orange County election officals claimed that all winning margins were wide enough to prevent any "winner" from losing.

Perhaps this fiasco was just an honest mistake. However, it might also show a means of having an undetectable election fraud. A dishonest voter (or voters) could get a code number from a friend who voted in another precinct and, voting in their own precinct, use the other number and vote in races in the friend's precinct.

Note: Hart InterCivic has a bit of a stain on their reputation from the Florida 2000 presidential election. Small world, eh?

[loudsue]

26. I won't rest until all these criminals are behind bars...

And that includes the Secy's of State and election officials who are allowing this to take place.

There are elections all over this country that should be overturned... starting, of course, with the appointment of GW Bush.

Keep up the good work, you guys! And God bless every one of you!

O8) Prayers for your continued safety and success! O8)

:kick::kick::kick:

[BevHarris]

28. Interesting note from Dallas Morning News

http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/dn/localnews/columnists/gjeffers/stories/042004dnmetjeffers.4e733.html It's a subscription only article, but the subscription is free.

Their op-ed section is on electronic voting, and they mention the 300,000 Collin County citizens whose private information showed up on the Diebold FTP site. They called Collin County, whose representative says Collin County has no record of ever giving the voter registration data to Diebold.

Hmmm.

Bev

[ParanoidPat]

29. Many SoS websites allow you to download info on registered voters.....

.....I can pull together a list of them if you want. :)

[Bushfire]

30. Don't forget to ask your libraries to order the book: Black Box Voting

Ballot Tampering in the 21st Century.

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/

Took me 5 minutes today online. Why not have some of your local tax dollars help restore democracy? Tell your friends, if they have a library card they can usually request a book.

[ParanoidPat]

31. Great idea!

Be sure to bring the ordering info from Bev's site with you! :evilgrin:

You can buy the book at Amazon or by sending $19.95 plus $5 S&H to the address below, and you can mail a donation to the same address.

Talion Publishing
Bookstore & Library Edition:
ISBN 1-890916-90-0
$19.95
To order from Bev Harris:
Call 425-228-7131
e-mail Talion

Order your copy today! :bounce:

[Bushfire]

57. Someone at Indymedia in my state picked up the idea

and already received a response from Ellen Theisen at www.VotersUnite.org .

http://milwaukee.indymedia.org/en/2004/04/200893.shtml

[ParanoidPat]

32. Kick for fair elections.

:kick:

[RedEagle]

33. One More Kick....

....before I get back to work.

[yowzayowzayowza]

41. ...and again.

:kick:

[maxwall]

34. Right on! *kick*

n/t

[ParanoidPat]

35. Avi Ruben on NOW, Rush Holt coming up soon!

:kick:

[maxwall]

37. BEV!

I finally decided to stop being a lurker, and have joined up here at DU...
Did you get the message on non-profits I left you?
I don't have enough posts to PM yet... Feel free to send a message... Hope all is well!

[BevHarris]

40. I did, and I've been wanting to call and say YES! (and love ya!)

but I have not had a chance.

Yes! In fact, I'm secretly counting on you. You have my cell phone, I hope? Actually, let's do this yesterday.

Bev

[xchrom]

38. kick

[jburton]

42. Bev - You were in the Dallas paper today as well

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/localnews/columnists/gjeffers/stories/042004dnmetjeffers.4e733.html

Jeffers is the bi-weekly local politics columnist

-------
Are electronic voting results vulnerable?

08:24 PM CDT on Monday, April 19, 2004

By GROMER JEFFERS JR. / The Dallas Morning News

Bev Harris claims she can hack into a computer and change election results in most states.

If she can, thank goodness she's not a crook.

"I can do it," she told the Dallas Democratic Forum last week. "In fact, I taught a 9-year-old to do it. It's not even what I would describe as hacking an election. It's editing an election. All you have to do is double-click a file and type to change an election, and it's untraceable."

The Seattle woman said she became interested in preserving the integrity of voting after the controversial 2000 presidential election and the widely publicized voting irregularities in Florida.
---------
much more...

[Pale_Rider]

43. Kicky-a-kick

:kick:

[ParanoidPat]

44. Hey guy, good to 'see' you!

Thanks for the :kick: :evilgrin:

[BevHarris]

45. Everyone's calling everyone about who has those lawyers memos

Do you supposed they'll pop up on a Swarthmore web site?

Bev

[ParanoidPat]

46. One can only hope.....

.....:) :kick:

[EndElectoral]

47. Diebold

Isn't the CEO of Diebold a big Republican supporter? Thought I heard on the radio the other day thet they were pretty assured Bush would win in 04. Kind of weird from a voting developer outfit?

Another FL mess? If JEB orders them, we're in trouble,

[ParanoidPat]

48. Walden W. O'Dell, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Diebold

From MotherJones.com .....Chad 2.0 November/December 2003 Issue

<Snip>

Voting companies claim that scenarios involving serious fraud are theoretical and nearly impossible to pull off: Few people have access to the source code or the machines. But the call of "trust us, we're experts" took a blow this summer when the Cleveland Plain Dealer outted Diebold chief executive Walden O'Dell as a major GOP operative. In addition to hosting a $1,000-a-plate fundraiser at his Columbus, Ohio, home, ODell sent out solicitations boasting that he's "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

[RedEagle]

49. Kick!

[ParanoidPat]

50. Goodnight kick for the insomniac crowd!

Thanks for your support! :) :kick:

[President Jesus]

52. Diebold Campaign Contributions: ALL REPUBLICAN FOR PAST 12 YEARS

see list
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x500578#500581

[Zinfandel]

51. Kick.

[Hekate]

53. Please accept my profound gratitude

and a little :kick: :kick:

Hekate

[Judi Lynn]

54. Morning kick.

:kick:

[RedEagle]

55. You Can't Vote'em Out If You Didn't Vote'em In

Call your senators today and ask them to cosponsor Graham's S. 1980.

It's a start, and we need a BIG kick start in the Senate.

[Timbuk3]

56. Tabulated California results

If there's any interest, I spent several hours compiling the county by county (and by what type of machine) results for the CA recall election. The source was a CA gov source. I have the url somewhere, and I'll post it when I find it if this is useful.

The file is online here:

http://www.timbuk3.com/vote.xls